Bug Description

Binary package hint: coreutils

Hello.
First sorry for my english, but it is not my native langage.

I'm a shelluser, and in my every day utilisation I copy and move some files, and some of them are big (>500Mo for example). So i was searching for progress bar with indication of the pourcentage and something like 34Mo/400Mo, like wget. On linuxfr.org (http://linuxfr.org/~pascalscl/13847.html) i found a discution about that, and i discover a secret option for 'cp' : the -g (for --gauge). I discover too a bug report about that on the archive of the Bug-coreutils mailing list (http://<email address hidden>/msg00610.html).
But it appear that this patch isn't present in the various release of coreutils on Ubuntu.

I know that isn't a bug, and I know that isn't a vital part of the coreutils. But I'm persuaded that the gauge is an interesant evolution for the tools 'cp' and 'mv'. For all the shelluser around the world i think it will be a good comfort to facilitate their utilisation of the shell.

So my question is : what about a future integration of a progress bar in some tools in the coreutils ?

I'm a shelluser, and in my every day utilisation I copy and move some files, and some of them are big (>500Mo for example). So i was searching for progress bar with indication of the pourcentage and something like 34Mo/400Mo, like wget. On linuxfr.org (http://linuxfr.org/~pascalscl/13847.html) i found a discution about that, and i discover a secret option for 'cp' : the -g (for --gauge). I discover too a bug report about that on the archive of the Bug-coreutils mailing list (http://<email address hidden>/msg00610.html).
But it appear that this patch isn't present in the various release of coreutils on Ubuntu.

I know that isn't a bug, and I know that isn't a vital part of the coreutils. But I'm persuaded that the gauge is an interesant evolution for the tools 'cp' and 'mv'. For all the shelluser around the world i think it will be a good comfort to facilitate their utilisation of the shell.

So my question is : what about a future integration of a progress bar in some tools in the coreutils ?

It would be bad if Ubuntu introduces some -g option and then later upstream uses -g for something else. Having different options in coreutils in various distros is not good. This should be done upstream.

Yes it's true, the best will be to integrate the "option -g" in all coreutils for all the distribution of GNU/Linux and derivated. But how can we contact the developers of coreutils ? And can an end-shell-user can be allowed to do this without appear insulting opposite to their labor ?

No, that’s a bug in coreutils. However, I don’t know why it doesn’t work for you
where it did for me. See #433394 for a fix. (Might still require backporting
since the patch over there is for version 6.0.)

I updated the patch to work with coreutils 6.0-1 from Experimental. As ususal,
use at your own risk; it works fine here, though.

This option(s) have been suggested upstream for quite some time now; last one was at about end of 2007. If something is to be done for a progress bar on cp, rm, mv, etc, it should, indeed, be upstream.

I will keep this bug open only because upstream will look at a *generic*, usable-everywhere solution. But -- unless you intend to code it, please do not expect any coreutils-implemented solution anytime soon (if at all). There are other ways of getting it (see Ondrej's comment above.

The attachment "Compiled binaries with the progress bar included" seems to be a patch. If it isn't, please remove the "patch" flag from the attachment, remove the "patch" tag, and if you are a member of the ~ubuntu-reviewers, unsubscribe the team.

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